It is a huge challenge
to get excellent professionals managers to leave large companies and join
startups. Good people are needed by a
startup but they won’t join easily. Such managers are generally poor
risk takers and only when they see stability in a company and they see other
professional managers making this leap of faith do they agree to make a change.
While it must always be
the objective of every entrepreneur who is working towards building a big
business on a national level to bring in strong professionals and gradually
handover the operations of the company to such professionals, the timing of
bringing in these professionals has to be right. The entrepreneur must outline
his philosophy for the Human Resources function not just in words but also in
deeds because this is what will set the management culture of the company.
The human resource
function of any company can make or break a company since the employees are
ambassadors of the company and and your “face” in front of your customers. Therefore
this function must have a strong leader and must have complete support of the
entrepreneur.
Some guiding human
resources principles that the entrepreneur should consider establishing very
early in the company’s journey are:
· The company should
rapidly move towards professional management and that not build a family run
organisation.
· Professional
growth must be based on meritocracy and not based on relationships with the
entrepreneur or some senior member of management or patronage
· Any
relationships between managers would need to be disclosed at the time of hiring
and approved by the management committee of the company. It should also
specified that two managers who are related would not be allowed to work in the
same department.
· Performance
management must be done based on agreed and quantifiable key result areas for
each manager
· Salary
increases would be based on achievement of results and not based on seniority
and definitely not based on relationships.
In large established
companies, HR policies are followed by everyone because “everyone else” follows
them and no one asks for any exceptions to be made. However in a new company,
most new employees try and implement policies they have either seen in use
elsewhere or want to get implemented for their own personal needs.
The entrepreneur must
make it clear to everyone that the company will implement
policies for employees that the entrepreneur is willing to accept himself. He
must take a decision to abide with the policies articulated by the Human
Resources department of the company, and approved by the board, in their
entirety so that there would no exceptions.
1.
He must start marking
his attendance on the biometric finger print reader every morning and evening
like he would expect all employees to do.
2.
Leave should be
applied for in the standard company approved application form. This must apply
to the entrepreneur as well.
3.
Ensure that no
special discounts are offered to the entrepreneur that the other employees are
not entitled to. Obviously, these can be graded based on seniority but the
principle must be transparent for all to understand.
4.
If the entrepreneur
calls for any samples to be given out as gifts, these should be duly authorised
as is done for all other managers.
5.
All the expense
claims of the entrepreneur must be approved by another board member as is the
practice followed in the company.
6.
For gifts received by employees, some companies
fix a limit beyond which all gifts need to be handed over to the Human
Resources manager. These gifts are then given away to all staff members through
a raffle either on the annual day or in a town hall meeting.
Only when people start
to see the entrepreneur following the companies’ policies will they start
accepting these and started adhering to them. If the entrepreneur does not
follow these policies then it will take a very short time before all management
levels will start to build exceptions for themselves.
Establishing the key
result areas, quantifying these and getting the “buy
in” from the respective managers is a big challenge the human resources
function is confronted with in every new company. Getting people to sit down
and make a commitment to accountable and measurable parameters was tough since
most people did not want to be pinned down to a set of numbers they would be
held accountable for.
It
can take several years and constant cajoling to get managers to start making
this commitment for themselves based on which they would set similar KRA’s for
their teams. This cannot be done though a directive because the entrepreneur is
always worried about losing key managers and therefore he needs to constantly
live on the edge of the razor!
While it is important
to professionalise a startup company quickly, handing over the reins of the
company and stepping back should only be done by an entrepreneur when the
organisation has built sufficient resilience to handle changes that a
professional manager is bound to bring in for the long term good of the
company.
Good policies coupled
with firm implementation could mean that your young company will need to keep
hiring better and better people to keep upgrading your skill sets. This will
also result in a higher than normal turnover in your management ranks but this
is to be expected and must not be a reason for any concern. It is better to
lose those employees who find it difficult to accept the company’s policies
rather than allow them to develop arbitrary policies and norms for employees. Over
a period of time, the management team will stabilise.
In summary, motivation
of human beings in a startup must be a fire from within. If someone else tries
to light that fire under the employee, chances are that this fire of motivation
will burn very briefly.
*******************
The author is the founder Chairman of
Guardian Pharmacies and the author of 5 best-selling books, Reboot. Reinvent.
Rewire: Managing Retirement in the 21st Century; The Corner Office; An Eye for
an Eye; The Buck Stops Here - Learnings of a #Startup Entrepreneur and The Buck
Stops Here – My Journey from a Manager to an Entrepreneur.
Twitter: @gargashutosh
Instagram: ashutoshgarg56
Blog: ashutoshgargin.wordpress.com |
ashutoshgarg56.blogspot.com
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